spasm

2 am and i can't sleep. i can't summon one little dream to take my mind and set it down in a faraway land and let it go exploring. i tiptoe out of the bedroom, careful not to disturb my soundly-sleeping husband, turn on a light in the family-room-minus-a-family—sometimes it doesn't seem worthy of the name family room unless all six, almost seven, and maybe someday soon, eight of us, plus dogs, are gathered here—and sit down. lille gets out of her warm bed and joins me.

so it's just me and lille and my aching neck. oh, yeah, i forgot to mention that's one of the reasons i can't sleep. i did something to strain my neck—starting with a muscle spasm, maybe from a lot of lifting and leaning with shovels and rakes and watering cans and pots of dirt?—and the muscles ache to the point that i can't move my head from side to side or up and down, opening my mouth hurts, sneezing shoots burning streaks out from the damaged spot, and my head feels like a bowling ball perched on a twig that's about ready to snap.

but never mind that. my biggest frustration tonight is that i can't peck away on my laptop to pass the time and get my mind off things because typing hurts my neck, too. so i gather a few sheets of lined notebook paper, get three big pillows and a book to put under the paper, and scratch out these words trying—trying so hard—to get comfortable while keeping my neck motionless with all of the above stuff piled on my lap.

it doesn't take long. i think i am doing better when, suddenly, here it comes again. that spasm.

spasm: definition: a sudden, involuntary contraction of a muscle or a sudden burst of energy or activity or emotion.

i'm having one.

out of the corner of my eye i see her on her favorite wicker lounge chair on the porch. she stretches and luxuriates in the rays of warm bright light that soothe her arthritic legs. and there, by the sink, reflected in her silver metal bowl that i rinsed after her last breakfast of chicken and rice. and again, in the golden tumbleweed balls of her soft fur that remain huddled and unmoving in the four corners of this family room. and, finally, in her red collar which lies unsnapped, solitary, uninhabited, on the coffee table.

waves of grief reach me, sending quiet teardrops sliding over the curve of my cheeks. since i still can't sleep i take my lille hund—danish for little dog—outside, and together we hear the barred owls call who cooks for you? trying to find each other in the night. we also seem to be searching, lille and i, seeking a missing part of ourselves in the dark. i imagine we find her—her thick, yellowed-ivory colored fur, those big, brown eyes and blonde lashes, and the sensitive silky ears always alert for any movement, be it the rustle of leaves or the opening of the treat bag.

as she stood on the grass during her last days with us, i watched her carefully. time was running out. lizzi seemed to linger a little longer before she hobbled back into the house, taking a longer look around, her nose twitching, pulling in the air, extracting one more deep scent. was she thinking it's been a good life, this short time i've spent here on earth, or am i just anthropomorphizing?

it was a good life.

in the end, i have no doubt in my mind—i can tell you this: she knew.

george and the labrador gang

i must say there is nothing quite like a house full of people and dogs at christmas. this year we made a new dog friend named george—george belongs to megan—and james brought along harper and we all nestled under one roof for several cozy, relaxing days after christmas; george and his crew traveled by car from texas to maine. together with lille and lizzi, the dogs provided great entertainment, a touch of drama, and lots of laughter. [click on the images to enlarge.]

george is a 20 pound who-the-heck-knows-what-kind of dog breed. on boxing day we went to denny's house and took a long walk in the beautiful snow-covered forest with 3 of our 4 dogs in residence plus ollie, luc and addie (we were sad that the only one of the lab siblings not present was montana)—6 humans, 6 dogs. george was seriously outnumbered by the labrador gang, but being surrounded by the big dogs didn't phase him in the least.

the labrador gang

georgie porgie puddin' pie

guess who led the pack of labradors most of the time? george. guess who had the littlest, stumpiest, sturdiest, most reliable legs that hastily carried him once again to the front of the troop of humans and canines if he happened to lag behind for a second to sniff the forest's tantalizing smells and lift a hind leg to mark the spot? george.

and his rather murky past? george is a scrappy survivor from the mean streets of texas city. one day around his fourth year of life, abandoned and unwanted, he was scooped up from those streets by the dog-catcher (a.k.a. the canine control officer) and placed on doggie death row where the date he was due to be euthanized was quickly approaching. but then—phew.... just in time—in walks megan, and it could be said that on the day megan arrived george's life finally began in ernest.

george is truly a great little dog—calm, quiet (unlike some of the labs!), well-behaved, and oh-so-loyal.

all's well that ends well, georgie boy.

and so we go on to celebrate a brand new year for you and for the rest of us, george.

happy new year, my dears!

image credit: the labrador gang. christina wnek

did someone just mention a swiffer?

when one (namely me) sprouts up as a brand-new bride (eons ago) and then one (me again) blossoms—in a simultaneous profusion—into a housewife, a mother of two (eventually becoming the mother of three children plus a bunch of dogs) and a graduate student (with an often absentee, on-the-road-doing-business husband), one can suddenly be hit over the head by the depressing realization that the demands of a hectic schedule and the goal of a brilliantly run household, a veritable garden of perfection (what lunacy is this?), might somehow be shockingly unattainable (gasp).

but that was before my mother arrived with a swiffer.

oh glorious day, the day when she presented me with a mysterious box. i opened the box, peered inside and said "what in tarnation is this thingamajig, mum?" and she, being the mostwonderfulofallmotherswhohaveeverexisted, replied "it's a swiffer, daughter dear" and proceeded to put it together. she wrapped the nifty, dust snagging cloth firmly in place and gave me a demonstration of what modern day squeaky clean housekeeping is all about.

ever since that day many moons ago, i have always had my swiffer ready for action, pushing it lazily—and certainly not often enough!—along these old wooden floors to snatch up the ever multiplying and enlarging clumps of dog fur and dust which seem to roll into these rooms like persistent tumbleweeds from an abandoned prairie town out yonder.

and speaking of bananas.....

what is it about dogs—well our dogs anyway— and bananas? you just have to start peeling a banana and the dogs come running. they don't even have to see you. they could be fast asleep, snoring peacefully in another room, and yet the second you snap back the top of the banana and tug down the peel they are up on their four—make that eight—legs scampering across the floor to see who can get their piece of banana first. they absolutely LOVE bananas. what is it about bananas?

our golden pond

from the first swim in the morning to the last one at night (skinny-dipping anyone?), the quiet pond north of boston where my parents live and where my brother and i grew up continues to bring us all together for lots of crazy fun. there go alex and hannah in the rowboat with james (?) swimming alongside.

as the sun throws bright, glittering sparkles across the water in the afternoon, three dogs, a bunch of cousins, husbands, wives, and my brother and i scamper down the steps and head out to row, swim and jump on the water trampoline anchored in the pond. mom and dad sit on a bench at the edge of the water. lille and montana the labradors find some good sticks for retrieving.

look out, heads up! kevin does some mighty fine flips as kayleigh and kameron watch.

of course there's plenty of lazy time, too.

kameron gets the idea to hold on to montana's tail and go for a little ride. montana manages to break away and paddles back to shore. she thinks jeez, i am not swimming anywhere near that boy again!


happy 80th birthday, dad!

sizzlewave

on a night like this, when a heat wave arrives, nothing else to do but turn off the big lights and sit in semi darkness on the porch, the painful intensity of normal lighting banished in order to try and fool our brains into at least thinking we feel a bit cooler.

the dogs stretch out motionless on the wooden floor, too hot to lie on their beds, wag their tails, lick our hands, nudge our arms or nuzzle us with their noses—poor things—as the heat closes over our heads and seems to suck away our oxygen supply. dogs and humans remain still, almost smothered in a state like catatonia, the heat forcing us into dormancy, slowly breathing in and out, an effort which, fortunately, is involuntary or else we might opt to cease doing it at all.

we reluctantly leave our seats to peer inside the refrigerator and the freezer, hopeful that cold beers or a splash of ice cubes in lemonade, iced tea or a mixture of both (thank you arnold palmer), will offer some relief. we place a bucket of water out for the dogs, but they can barely be bothered to open their eyes, let alone their mouths, to look at what we're doing.

we humans on the porch are such wimps, unable to take the heat. our anglo-saxon northern european roots hide deep within our cells and tonight they cry out and expose us for what we are. our body's ancient programming is searching for a way to cool-off, a gene pool's primal urge for self-preservation.

in the middle of the heat wave three of my husband's friends from new jersey roar up the driveway on harley's, having completed their road trip to prince edward island. we welcome them to our "bed and breakfast." we were going to fire up the barbecue grill, but the heat forces us to abandon that plan and escape indoors to gritty's air-conditioned pub for dinner.

relief.

later in the evening, back on the porch again, the night cools down into the 70's. by 11 o'clock our dna finally relaxes and feels at home again in our bodies.

sometimes it just....

rains and rains and rains.
it has to, you know.
the earth drinks
the green deepens
spring continues her dance.

the rain doesn't bother me too much. there's always a lot to do indoors and outdoors and this way, with the rain, i don't have to choose whether i'm tackling the in or the out. the decision has already been made for me. once the rain stops, though, there's gonna be sooooo much work to catch up on outside.

during a lull in the rain i stepped outside with lille and lizzi. the dogs' noses led them straight to a tiny baby gray squirrel who was eating fallen bird seed under the plants near one of the feeders. at first i couldn't even see the poor frightened thing, but i heard him squeaking. i thought the pups had stumbled upon some mice or voles or birds. instead they had discovered a very bold bundle of fur, who was either a recently displaced, tossed-out-of-the-nest baby struggling to survive without his mother's milk, or a rapidly-growing, ultra-hungry youngster grabbing some extra chow.

the labs would never bite or hurt a squirrel intentionally, but lille, the young one, ever alert to the possibility of a retrieve, could, in her drooling enthusiasm, have given the itty-bitty toddler a major heart attack so.....

i grabbed the dogs' collars and held on tightly, allowing the snub-nosed mite a chance to haul his roly-poly rear end up a tree. i was surprised at how he just sort of jogged over to the safety of a big white pine. maybe he was dazed by being snuffled and slobbered on from head to toe. i was also surprised the munchkin didn't give the dogs a good nip on their noses. maybe he thought his baby milk teeth were useless against my (unknown-to-him) lovable monsters.

loving a blizzard

 snowy lille smiled a lot during monday's blizzard.

lille, lizzi and i love a good blizzard, a good whiteout. (as long as the whiteout is happening in our yard and not while we're driving!) finally i have some decent snow to talk about. lille went crazy in the snow on monday. (so did i.) lizzi has arthritis so she took it easy. we dashed around the yard. i threw sticks. lille fetched every one and dropped them neatly at my feet as she always does.

while i was shoveling lille amused herself by making up her own game. lille tossed a lacrosse ball in a pile of snow and then burrowed her entire head in the pile to sniff it out. if burrowing didn't produce the desired result, she began to dig in the snow until she retrieved the ball. she messed up my nicely shoveled paths a little, but who cares! we had fun!

it snowed all sunday night and most of monday, adding up to a grand total of 12 inches. the wind was fierce, so we played and shoveled for a while, went inside and warmed up, and then went back out again. we repeated this scenario several times on monday. as you can well imagine, the dogs and i slept deeply and soundly on monday night!